materialism

&

dialectical materialism

type of physicalism which believes the only thing that can exist is matter, and all phenomena are the result of material interactions

 (Democritus, Pierre Gassendi, Thomas Hobbes, Julien de La Mettrie, Baron d'Holbach)

&

official philosophy of Communism, and part of Marxism, in which everything is material and that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites."

(Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, G. V. Plekhanov, V. I. Lenin)

dualism

belief that mental phenomena are non-physical,

thus the mind is seperate from the brain

(Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant)

ontological,

metaphysical,

& scientific

naturalism

 ontological (aka metaphysical) naturalism is a belief that the only thing that exists is the universe and there is nothing outside of it, hence entailing strong aetheism

(Auguste Comte, Friedrich Nietzsche)

scientific naturalism explains nature without supernatural origins or influence, however does not insist on the non-existance of supernatural

(Isaac Newton, Pierre Simon de Leplace)

agnosticism

form of skepticism that holds that the existence of God cannot be logically proved or disproved.

(Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, T. H. Huxley)

altruism

vs

egoism

concept that holds that the interests of others, rather than of the self, can or should

motivate an individual

 (Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill)

vs

the doctrine that the ends and motives of human conduct are, or should be, the good of the individual agent

(utilitarians, hedonists, Friedrich Nietzsche)

asceticism

rejection of bodily pleasures through sustained self-denial and self-mortification, with the objective of strengthening spiritual life (ie fasting)

(Essenes, monks, hermits, yogis, fakir, sadhus, Vincent van Gogh)

atheism

denial of the existence of God or gods and of any supernatural existence

(Robert G. Ingersoll, Bertrand Russell,

Madalyn Murry O'Hair)

atomism

concept that the universe is composed of invisible, indestructible material particles

(Leucippus, Democritus, Pierre Gassendi, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, John Locke)

Platonists

 &

Cambridge Platonists

the philosophy of Plato, stressing especially that actual things are copies of transcendent ideas and that these ideas are the objects of true knowledge apprehended by reminiscence

 &

philosophers at Cambridge Univ. in the 17th cent, whom revived certain Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas, such as a mystical conception of the soul's relation to God and the belief that moral ideas are innate in man, and that faith and reason differ only in degree (Benjamin Whichcote, Ralph Cudworth, Henry More, John Smith)

Platonism modified to accord with Aristotelian, post-Aristotelian, and eastern conceptions that conceives of the world as an emanation from an ultimate indivisible being with whom the soul is capable of being reunited in trance or ecstasy

(Plotinus, Porphyry, Ammonius Saccus, Proclus, Hypatia)

Cartesianism

[image]

use of Cartesian method, which has these laws:

• doubt all unless clear and distinct by reason;
• analyze complex ideas by their simple constitutive elements;
• reconstruct, take simple ideas and work synthetically to the complex;
• make a complete enumeration of the data of the problem, using methods of induction and deduction.

(Rene Descartes)

nominalism

vs

conceptualism

vs

realism

denies that universals (abstract entities)

exist independently of the mind

(Heraclitus, William of Ockham, John Locke, George Berkeley)

vs

denies that universals exist independently of the mind, but affirms that universals have an existence in the mind as concept, and perhaps in the mind of God (Peirre Abelard)

vs

belief that universals exist outside the mind, specifically: the conception that an abstract term names an independent and unitary reality (Plato, Aristotle, David Malet Armstrong, William of Champeaux, Thomas Aquinas, John of Salisbury, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, C. D. Broad)

Cynics

an adherent of an ancient Greek school of philosophers who held the view that virtue is the only good and that its essence lies in self-control and independence

(Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinope, Crates)

stoicism

a member of a school of philosophy holding that the wise man should be free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief,

and submissive to natural law

(Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus, Panaetius of Rhodes, Posidonius, Cicero)

Cyrenaics

a member of a greek school of philosophy holding that pleasure is the chief end of life

(Aristippus of Cyrene, Theodorus)

hedonism

&

epicureanism

the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life

& 

philosophy of Epicurus, in which pleasure is the end of all morality and that real pleasure is attained through a life of prudence, honor, and justice

(Cyrenaics, Polystratus, Zeno of Sidon, Philodemus of Gadara, John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham)

utilitarianism

&

consequentialism

a doctrine that the useful is the good and that the determining consideration of right conduct should be the usefulness of its consequences; specifically: a theory that the aim of action should be the largest possible balance of pleasure over pain

(Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, G. E. Moore, J. J. C. Smart, R. M. Hare)

&

the theory that the value and especially the moral value of an act should be judged by the value of its consequences

deism

system of thought advocating natural religion, emphasizing morality, and typically holding that the course of nature sufficiently demonstrates the existence of God. In the 18th century it also denied God's personal relations or persuasion.

(freethinkers, Voltaire, J. J. Rousseau, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson)

gnosticism

the thought and practice especially of various cults of late pre-Christian and early Christian centuries distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through gnosis, or hidden knowledge

(Valentinus, Basilides, Mandaeans)

determinism

hard vs soft

&

fatalism

belief that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws

 Incompatibilists, (hard determinists) view determinism and free will as mutually exclusive

vs 

Compatibilists, (soft determinists) believe that the two ideas can be coherently reconciled

&

a doctrine that events are fixed in advance so that human beings are powerless to change them

causal,

logical,

environmental,

biological,

& theological

determinism

Causal (or nomological) determinism is the thesis that future events are necessitated by past and present events combined with the laws of nature.

Logical determinism is the notion that all propositions, whether about the past, present or future, are either true or false.

Environmental, climatic or geographical determinism holds the view that the physical environment, rather than social conditions, determines culture.

Biological determinism is the idea that all behavior, belief, and desire are fixed by our genetic endowment.

Theological determinism is the thesis that there is a God who determines all that humans will do, either by knowing their actions in advance, via some form of omniscience or by decreeing their actions in advance.

eclecticism

vs

syncretism

the selection of elements from different systems of thought, without regard to possible contradictions between the systems

(Cicero, Neoplatonists, Victor Cousin)

vs

combine various systems while resolving conflicts

(numerous)

open theism

a foundational theology that attempts to explain the practical relationship between the free will of man and the sovereignty of God

(Calcidius, Adam Clarke, John E. Sanders, Winkie Pratney, Richard Rice, Gregory Boyd...)

theism

belief in the existence of a god or gods; specifically : belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world

Calvinism

the theological system of John Calvin and his followers marked by strong emphasis on the sovereignty of God, the depravity of humankind, and the doctrine of predestination

(aka Reformed theology) 

(Martin Bucer, Heinrich Bullinger, Peter Marty Vermigli, and Huldrych Zwingli)

Arminianism

doctrines of Jacobus Arminius, opposing the absolute predestination of strict Calvinism and maintaining the possibility of salvation for all

(Hugo Grotius, John Wesley, Clark Pinnock)

Pelagianism

agreeing with Pelagius in denying original sin and consequently in holding that individuals have perfect freedom to do either right or wrong

(Julian of Eclanum, Celestius)

empiricism

doctrine that all knowledge is derived from experience, typically including inner experience

—reflection upon the mind and its operations—

as well as sense perception.

(John Stuart Mill, John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume)

positivism

&

logical positivism

a theory that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method

vs

aka logical empiricism, a 20th century stricter and more logical positivism, holds characteristically that all meaningful statements are verifiable by observation and that metaphysical theories are therefore strictly meaningless

existentialism

any of several philosophic systems, all centered on the individual and his relationship to the universe or to God

(Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Gabriel Marcel, and Jean-Paul Sartre)

freethinkers

one who forms opinions on the basis of reason independently of authority; especially : one who doubts or denies religious dogma

(Anthony Collins, William Kingdon Clifford, Voltaire)

humanism

philosophical and literary movement in which man and his capabilities are the central concern; usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual's dignity and worth

(Giovanni Boccaccio, Petrarch, Lorenzo Valla, Lorenzo de' Medici, Erasmus, and Thomas More, F. C. S. Schiller and Irving Babbitt)

idealism

attitude that places special value on ideas and ideals as products of the mind, in comparison with the world as perceived through the senses

(Plato, George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant, J. G. Fichte, Friedrich von Schelling, G. W. F. Hegel...)

instrumentalism

a doctrine that ideas are instruments of action and that their usefulness determines their truth

(John Dewey)

mechanism

vs

vitalism

 a doctrine that holds the processes of life are explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone, and can be mechanically determined

vs

a doctrine that the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone, and that life is in some part self-determining

scholasticism

&

neo-scholasticism

a philosophical movement dominant in western Christian civilization from the 9th until the 17th century and combining religious dogma with the mystical and intuitional tradition of patristic philosophy especially of St. Augustine and later with Aristotelianism

&

a movement among Catholic scholars aiming to restate medieval Scholasticism in a manner suited to present intellectual needs

monism

(physical, neutral, or dialectical)

vs

pluralism

theory that explains all phenomena by one unifying principle or as manifestations of a single substance, which is physical or neutral (neither physical nor mental) or dialectical (physical & transendent) (Christian von Wolff, Ernst Haeckel,

G. W. Hegel, Spinoza)

vs

theory that considers the universe explicable in terms of many principles or composed of many ultimate substances

(Empedocles, G. W. von Leibniz,

William James, Bertrand Russell)

nihilism

a philosophical position which argues that Being, especially past and current human existence, is without objective meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value

(Dada, futurism, deconstructionism)

futurism

(general & Christian)

a. finds meaning or fulfillment in the future rather than in the past or present

b. interpretation of the Bible in Christian eschatology placing the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Book of Revelation and the Book of Daniel generally in the future as literal, physical, apocalyptic and global

structuralism

vs

deconstructionism

(poststructuralism)

belief that elements cannot be understood apart from their interrelations, because it is the network of interrelations that constitutes the meaningful structure of a system

vs

belief that metaphysical constructs are always rendered unstable by their dependence on ultimately arbitrary signifiers

occasionalism

doctrine that denies that finite things have any active power and asserts that God is the only cause, whereas physical events and mental states are only occasions for God's action

(Muslim theologians in the 8th cent., Arnold Geulincx, Nicolas Malebranche)

optimism

vs

pessimism

opinion that good predominates over evil, or

that we live in the best of possible worlds

(most of Christianity, Leibniz)

 vs

opinion that evil predominates over good, or

that we live in the worst of possible worlds

(Buddhism, Hinduism, Arthur Schopenhauer, Martin Heidegger)

phenomenology

&

phenomenological method

movement, founded by Edmund Husserl, that describes the formal structure of the objects of awareness and of awareness itself in abstraction from any claims concerning existence.  The concern was with what is known, not how it is known.

 &

this method is neither the deductive method of logic nor the empirical method of the natural sciences; instead it consists in realizing the presence of an object and elucidating its meaning through intuition.

pragmatism

movement in philosophy founded by C. S. Peirce and William James and marked by the doctrines that the meaning of conceptions is to be sought in their practical bearings, that the function of thought is to guide action, and that truth is preeminently to be tested by the practical consequences of belief

(John Dewey, F. C. S. Schiller, C. I. Lewis,

W. V. O. Quine, Richard Rorty)

rationalism

theory that reason is in itself a source of knowledge superior to and independent of sense perceptions

(René Descartes, G. W. Von Leibniz, Baruch Spinoza)

sensationalism

empiricism that limits experience as a source of knowledge to sensation or sense perceptions

(Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, Julien de La Mettrie, Baron d' Holbach, Claude Helvétius, Étienne de Condillac,

Ernst Mach) 

skepticism

& solipsism

vs

dogmatism

position holding that the possibility of knowledge is limited either because of the limitations of the mind or because of the inaccessibility of its object; loosely used to denote any questioning attitude. (Democritus, Sophists, Protagoras, Gorgias, Pyrrho, Arcesilaus, Michel de Montaigne, Pierre Charron, Blaise Pascal, Pierre Bayle, David Hume)

&

idea that "My mind is the only thing that I know exists"

 vs

positiveness in assertion of opinion especially when unwarranted or arrogant (numerous)

syllogism

a deductive scheme of a formal argument consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion (as in “every virtue is laudable; kindness is a virtue; therefore kindness is laudable”)

(Aristotle, John Venn, Western thought)

transcendentalism

emphasizes the a priori conditions of knowledge and experience or the unknowable character of ultimate reality or that emphasizes the transcendent as the fundamental reality

(Kant)

relativism

vs

perspectivism

vs

objectivism

vs

subjectivism

view developed by Nietzsche that all ideations take place from a particular cognitive perspective 

vs

theory that knowledge is relative to the limited nature of the mind and the conditions of knowing

vs

any of various theories asserting the validity of objective phenomena over subjective experience; especially : realism

vs

 theory that stresses, or limits knowledge to, subjective experience

pantheism

doctrine that equates God with the forces and laws of the universe, often includes the teaching "God is all, and all is God."

(Hinduism, Stoics, Erigena, Eckhart, Boehme, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza)

panentheism

(surrelativism)

&

panendeism

belief that the one God interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond as well.

Panentheists tend to see God in personal terms and rely on scripture and tradition as the basis for their belief. Panendeists on the other hand view the relationship between god, or Spirit, and humanity as transpersonal and rely on reason and experience as the basis for their belief.

(Native Americans, Neoplatonists, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christianity, Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Hartshorne, Larry Copling)

narcissism

(primary & secondary)

a. indicates self-love and egoism;

b. primary narcissism refers to the love of self which, Freud argues, must precede the ability to love others;

c. secondary narcissism is identifying with, and then introjecting, an object or person, making it part of oneself.

creationism

a theory holding that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by God out of nothing and usually as literally described in Genesis

modernism

vs

postmodernism

 the sweeping changes that took place between the late nineteenth century and the Second World War; movement towards sophistication, mannerism, introversion, technical display, internal self-scepticism, and as a reaction against Victorian realism

vs

various movements in reaction to modernism; often characterized by a return to traditional forms; features include variety, contingency, and ambivalence; the permanent and irreducible pluralism of cultures, communal traditions, ideologies, “forms of life” or “language games”

essentialism

vs

conventionalism

theory ascribing ultimate reality to essence embodied in a thing perceptible to the senses only

 vs

view that the adoption by the relevant scientific community of one theory rather than its rival is a matter of mere convention; laws and theories are usually universal in scope, and so make claims that go beyond any finite set of evidence for them.

anthropomorphism

 an interpretation of what is not human or personal in terms of human or personal characteristics: humanization

process theology

(neoclassical theology)

metaphysical process philosophy defined by Alfred North Whitehead, including these concepts:

• the divine has a power of persuasion rather than coercion
• reality is made up of serially-ordered events, which are experiential in nature
• the universe is characterized by process and change carried out by the agents of free will
• God contains the universe but is not identical with it (panentheism, theocosmocentrism)
• God is affected by the actions that take place in the universe (is relative), yet maintains absolute goodness

(Charles Hartshorne, John B. Cobb,

David Ray Griffin, Thomas Jay Oord)

pandeism

mixing elements of pantheism and deism; the belief that God precedes the universe and is the universe's creator, and that the universe is currently the entirety of God, sometimes adding that the universe will one day coalesce back into a single being, God.

dipolar theism

the position that in order to conceive a perfect God, one must conceive Him as embodying the "good" in sometimes-opposing characteristics, and therefore cannot be understood to embody only one set of characteristics.

(process theology)

sadomasochism

derivation of pleasure from the infliction of physical or mental pain either on others or on oneself

libertarianism

belief in the doctrine of free will; upholding the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action

Confucianism

vs

Taoism

ancient Chinese ethical and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of Confucius. Its focus is primarily on secular ethics and morality, as well as the cultivation of the civilized individual which in turn would contribute to the establishment of a civilized society and ultimately world peace

vs

a Chinese mystical philosophy traditionally founded by Lao-tzu in the sixth century b.c. that teaches conformity to the Tao (compassion, moderation, and humility) by unassertive action and simplicity

legalism

strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code

universalism

&

unitarianism

a theological doctrine that all human beings will eventually be saved

&

 stresses individual freedom of belief, the free use of reason in religion, a united world community, and liberal social action